Comments

Triplet Perar: CHALLENGE — If one can take a serious photograph with a 9fps 12MP Nikon D3 or 16MP D4 to be on the cover of National Geographic or Vogue, then that person can surely take one more serious photograph with a 8.6fps 16MP E-PL to be on the cover too. CONCLUSION — If one whines about the EPL's specs being "inadequate", then that same person would fail miserably with D3 or D4 or any other professional's choice.

Just watch this on computational photography, the gap between phones and cameras+lens (costing less than U$2000) is truly closing :

Nic727: Sad to see that cameras, especially compact one don’t evolve that much compared to phone cam.

What I mean, is that even with this tiny sensor and small lenses, they can can take fast picture (f1.8-2.8), have a zoom (x5 or more numerical zoom or optical depending of phone), good night capabilities and amazing HDR colors.

Compact cameras have a bigger lens and sensor, but they hardly achieve that. Why?

If they put the CPU and software they use in current top phones inside most compact cameras, 1" and M43, they will probably have even better performance and IQ. On the other hand, that CPU will add a considerable amount on the price point and then not many people will buy them, simply because the increase in IQ doesn't compensate that phones are always with you, much more portable, internet, apps, WhatsApp and they make calls !

Triplet Perar: CHALLENGE — If one can take a serious photograph with a 9fps 12MP Nikon D3 or 16MP D4 to be on the cover of National Geographic or Vogue, then that person can surely take one more serious photograph with a 8.6fps 16MP E-PL to be on the cover too. CONCLUSION — If one whines about the EPL's specs being "inadequate", then that same person would fail miserably with D3 or D4 or any other professional's choice.

tonyz1: I'd love to see a comparison from DPR of the TG-5 vs the GoPro Hero 6 vs the iPhone X. I recently purchased this from Costco and found the image quality lacking in my quick 15 minute test compared to my iPhone X and returned it. Would love to see how this compares given that an iPhone X has a 28mm and 56mm optically stabilized lens with extremely high ease of use. Also, would be interested in seeing how the TG-5 with fisheye attachment compares to a GoPro.

Even if these are not directly comparable, I would think most consumers would either take a GoPro + iPhone in a waterproof case or buy a TG-5 + fisheye.

For videos I liked more the GoPro Hero 5 Black than tg4, would go for a TG5 if it is really better than the TG-4 in that. Test them riding my bike in various light conditions, city and dirt trails, and also skiing. Much better in the GoPro :- adapt quickly and efficiently to changes in dynamic range- automatic video stabilization- size/weight- battery lifeFor pictures I don't think Tg-4 Tg-5 is going to be much better than current iPhones really. Check zoomed samples, specially in tree leaves and you will see how mushy they look ! If you look outside the center of the image then it looks as terrible as any smartphone to me.My phones are NOKIA 1020 and iPhone6 + Ztylus revolver adapter having fish-eye, wide, macro and circular polarizer. But when I want good IQ I use my Olympus OMD 10 which is far far superior than TG-4 sensor-lens combo or phones, there is simply no comparison and is quite hard to like smartphone and small sensor IQ after using a better M43 camera ;-)

Jefftan: I can't believe anyone would say TG-5 has bad IQ unless defectiveOf course for a small sensor camera if u take dark pics at ISO 1600, IQ is bad

Actually in bright well exposed ISO 1600 pics, IQ still OK, I turn NR off in camera for maximum detail

for low ISO 100/200 those famous nice Olympus color is worth the money, also good detail (with NR turn off in camera which is a new feature in TG-5, make big difference in detail)

The jpeg color has noticeable improve from my TG-2 which is already decent

I like TG form long time ago since TG-2I wish there is a big sensor version but for now I recommend anyone to buy it

Hi Jeff,

Last year I was in doubt between TG-4 and GoPro Hero 5 Black which I ended up buying, since at the time I did like the fullHD video dynamic range and IQ of the GoPro much better than the TG-4.

I found that for choosing an adventure/travel/action camera main points are :- video with good fast auto dynamic range adjustment, you can then use frames as stills if needed.- portability / wearability , so you could almost forget you have a camera on you and concentrate more on the activity.- battery life, GoPro's last much longer and spare one is minuscule.- accessories, no comparison here.

Is the TG-5 considerable better in video IQ and auto DR than TG-4 ?Would you still recommend it over the GoPro Hero 5 or 6 if it's just for video & high speed bursts considering the points above ?

JhvaElohimMeth: I really don't see the point of such lenses. I think m43 is meant to be super portable and not too expensive. Then, ok, this lenses are up to Canikon top notch primes, sure, but only in good, soft light. The weak point on smaller formats is always backlight (purple) hazing. In that condition my Canon 50mm 1.4 behaves better than this super expensive Oly lenses, and is way lighter.

All the m43 lens I own are weak at that. And, judging this samples, this lenses are weak too. At this point I would never spend more than thousand euros in a lens so weak in harsh light. My panny 20mm is very similar to my canon primes in good light, where the difference starts to appear is with bad light. And there's nothing to do, bigger format lenses wins there.

However this is not to criticize m43 format, I love and use it every day. Just stay light and snappy. Leave the expensive big heavy boring job to full format bigger brothers.

Well I can't really comment on that, I'm not a pro. However I'm happy to see that Oly is still expanding their offerings.

It was a hard pick between my current travel kit (17mm f1.8 + 14-150mm II) and the 12-40 f2.8 PRO, both same price at the time with instant rebates. Ended up deciding for the former for portability mainly, but boy it was a hard choice.

JhvaElohimMeth: I really don't see the point of such lenses. I think m43 is meant to be super portable and not too expensive. Then, ok, this lenses are up to Canikon top notch primes, sure, but only in good, soft light. The weak point on smaller formats is always backlight (purple) hazing. In that condition my Canon 50mm 1.4 behaves better than this super expensive Oly lenses, and is way lighter.

All the m43 lens I own are weak at that. And, judging this samples, this lenses are weak too. At this point I would never spend more than thousand euros in a lens so weak in harsh light. My panny 20mm is very similar to my canon primes in good light, where the difference starts to appear is with bad light. And there's nothing to do, bigger format lenses wins there.

However this is not to criticize m43 format, I love and use it every day. Just stay light and snappy. Leave the expensive big heavy boring job to full format bigger brothers.

Consider also Orly 17mm f1.8, great quality metal build and still really small, a beauty, 46mm filter thread. I did tested both the Pana 20mm f1.7 and this Oly and liked more the Oly for my OMD-M10 but both are great options.

Those new offerings are PRO but much larger and heavier so takes away the portability thing of M43 systems in my opinion.

Probably great for a pro photographer with the larger weather sealed OMD-M1.

Macro-converters like the Rynox M150 or M250 ones are also good for beginners that already own a tele lens (more than 100-120mm) and don't want to invest on a dedicated macro lens yet.

What about the use of a LED light ring attached to the front of the lens instead of the flash+diffuser combo ? Any pros and cons of using this ?I've been using a very inexpensive Polaroid LED ring with good results.

PropaPH: the total sensor area of this camera, using 10 exposures, is just a little over one square inch. I doubt that the image quality will be as good as any of the better 1" sensor single lens cameras. The fact that there is a lot of merging and stitching guarantees that the images will be soft in comparison.

Exactly right, but having a 1" or M43 sensor cam with 16 lenses will certainly not fit in your pocket. That is the purpose of this toy not replacing your M43 or DSLR system.

Farmer in the Dell: I applaud the innovation and look forward to receiving my copy. I am an enthusiast, not a pro, and have fun trying new technologies. It is easy to attack innovators, but I would rather cheer them on and contribute to the efforts to make it better than to shoot it down and to forever stand with the status quo.

PropaPH I agree with you, comparing small sensors with large ones is nothing more than a marketing trick. You can download 3 full size images from the company site and see how the highs are clipped, like in any smartphone or small sensor P&S cam, some purple fringe defects etc.Lots of megapixels is 2D resolution is not the same as dynamic range resolution. I guess some people are still impressed by large megapixel advertisement ? What matters for IQ is the real effective resolution, measured by how many lines/area the sensor+lens+algorithms can resolve.I seriously doubt effective 2D resolution would be any close to 52MP.I believe this gadget could realistically compete with enthusiast P&S cams with the advantage of having several lenses in a small package.I won't trade my OMD cam for this, don't think that is the point.

Farmer in the Dell: I applaud the innovation and look forward to receiving my copy. I am an enthusiast, not a pro, and have fun trying new technologies. It is easy to attack innovators, but I would rather cheer them on and contribute to the efforts to make it better than to shoot it down and to forever stand with the status quo.

Please let me know your experience with this new product.It certainly seems like a great idea.I always though that, for smartphones cameras, they could include 3 sensors and lenses one for each color and merge them in processing resulting in a compact camera module with better instant low-light IQ photos.Lets see if the resurrected NOKIA does something like this for it's new flagship phones. But this L16 gadget is that idea taken to the limit :-)

Michael_13: What's the point?You can do this with practically any camera (p&s, SLR) to improve IQ. Some model even do this automatically in a special low noise mode.My Lumia phone even lets me set imaging parameters like ISO, etc with the standard photo app.And NO, it does not show what phone cams are capable of: it simply works around their flaws.

Hi Michael,My Lumia 1020 in manual mode allows to take a photo with up to 4sec exposure time if I well remember, using a tripod I've got nice nocturnal photos. But it does 8x auto oversampling at about 27mm equivalent focal lenght resulting in 5 MP images, not 9 to 10MP like this article explains. Also 8x is far lower than 32x !Of course the Lumia does this trick automatically but it would take it like an hour to do what the article says. ;-)

cdembrey: I'll buy one, when they become available at the end of 2017. For many people, computational photography is the future of image making.

Digital photography has always been about ones and zeros. The Light will just need a smart-phone style computer, instead of a wimpy camera computer. Nothing new needs to be invented.

The advantage of having smaller sensor is definitely having smaller portable lenses.They could also achieve really nice tricks. Nokia 1020 small size sensor with 41MP on it can perform zoom better than most single no zoom lens newer phones for example.Also the same sensor can do oversampling in low light with clearer pictures than my new iPhone.Fuji's old EXR sensor did similar tricks that actually worked in the right situations.Many new phones are including two lenses now to go beyond the limitations of small sensors.

But yeap, let's wait and see what they really have to offer when the time comes. So far is nothing more than a cool project ;-)

cdembrey: I'll buy one, when they become available at the end of 2017. For many people, computational photography is the future of image making.

Digital photography has always been about ones and zeros. The Light will just need a smart-phone style computer, instead of a wimpy camera computer. Nothing new needs to be invented.

Interesting idea !They could develop an App so you could attach the camera module to any phone through a specific case and all computation, internet connection, app upgrades, sharing etc would be done by the phone OS.Having small sensor devices like the Nokia 1020 and FUJI HS50 with EXR 16/8MP sensor I always though about taking computational photography to extremes using multi-lens gear to compose the final pictures. Compensating small size sensors low light performance by using several of them by doing real-time oversampling or switching to composing high resolution mode when light is plenty.Having it all in a small package would be welcome.Hope they have success on this project.

Antek R: This posting is misleading. A microscope is not a DNA sequencer. However, imaging systems similar to microscopes are used in some sequencers. What are you really talking about? Please be precise. Since you say "tissue sample" rather than a processed DNA sample, presumably you mean a microscope, not a sequencer.